


mosaic broken hearts

by doc_pickles



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: A hint of smut, F/M, Fix It Fic, Jolex Happy Ending, Link Comforting Jo, Nothing explicit, Post 16 x 15, a taylor swift lyric for a title again? must be a day that ends in Y
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25704574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doc_pickles/pseuds/doc_pickles
Summary: a fix it fic in which alex comes home and jo is reminded that sometimes we carry scars on the inside too
Relationships: Alex Karev/Jo Wilson Karev
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	mosaic broken hearts

**Author's Note:**

> literally have no idea where this fic came from but??? i love it so much, might be my favorite piece of writing i’ve put out in recent weeks. i wanted to write some angst with a happy ending and this is what came about. enjoy!

The silence in the loft was deafening. Jo missed hearing football games playing too loud on the TV, she missed Meredith complaining to Alex while Jo was trying to sleep. She even missed her husband's obnoxious snoring. She just wanted Alex to come home, she would start screaming to fill the silence he had left sooner than later. 

“Jo?”

The loft door rolled open, Jo turning in eager anticipation towards the noise. She let out a discontented sigh as she watched Link walk in, heart falling with a thud inside of her chest. She sunk back into the couch, eyes brimming with tears as Link came to sit with her.

“I thought you were him.”

“I'm sorry,” Link roped his arm around Jo’s shoulders, his voice dripping with pity. Jo hated how it sounded, but for once she felt that she deserved the pity party. Her husband was missing and all she could do was sit at home, drink wine, and cry herself to sleep. 

“He left me.”

“No, he didn't,” Link was quick to interject, always the optimist of the pair.

“I think he did. I think he woke up one day and felt the need to escape his life and me,” Jo heaved a sigh, standing and pacing in front of the couch as Link stared at her worriedly. “I called his mom. He wasn't there, she hadn’t spoken to him in months. He never went there, he’s been lying to me and I have no clue where he is.” 

Her defenses fell then, Jo’s breaths coming out in ragged gasps as she clutched her chest. She had been hiding her feelings, denying her emotions as she held on to some small piece of hope that Alex was on his way home to her. Her heart felt like it was giving out, like it was physically breaking inside of her. 

“He left me. And now I can't…”

One sob broke through then, bringing Jo to her knees as the reality of her situation weighed down on her. _She was alone again._ More sobs followed, Link quickly gathering Jo in his arms as she continued to let her pent up emotions rip through her like a hurricane. _How had she ended up here? How did things come to this?_

“I can't, I can't breathe,” Jo choked out, burying her head in Link’s chest. “I can’t breathe without him, I feel like I’m being ripped in half. I need Alex.”

Her sobs turned into desperate panting for air as Link attempted to calm Jo down. Although it took almost an hour of rubbing her back and talking her down, Jo finally fell into an exhausted slumber in his arms where Link let her rest for a few more minutes before scooping her up and placing her in bed. He turned the lights in the loft off and locked the door, staring at his best friend with a lingering pang of sadness. The last thing Jo deserved in this life was more pain and heartbreak. 

+

The next morning, the early sun filtering through the windows woke Jo, eliciting a groan from her. She felt horrible, a migraine coming on from her exhaustive crying the night before. Stumbling to the bathroom, she swallowed a few pain pills to combat her emotional hangover before climbing into the shower. The hot water felt good against her skin, burning her arms in a way that felt as if all of her worries were melting away. 

A clanging outside the bathroom made Jo pause as she shampooed her hair. She waited, the clanging still sounding, before rinsing her hair and quickly exiting the shower. Someone trying to kill her was not what she had on her agenda for the day, but neither was her husband going MIA… Throwing on her underwear and one of Alex’s old shirts, Jo crept into the living room, her heart racing when she finally figured out what was making the mysterious noise. 

_“Alex.”_

Hearing his name, Alex turned towards his wife, tired eyes taking her in for the first time in almost a month. He had missed her, his feet automatically moving forward and wrapping her in his arms. Jo returned the gesture, wet hair pressed against Alex’s chest as she held him as close as she could. She let out a shuddering exhale, worries and fears exiting her mind as she held onto her husband.

“I thought you left me, I thought you had an affair and left and were never coming back,” Alex could hear the desperation in Jo’s voice, causing him to pull back and look down at her. “Where have you- oh my god! Alex!”

He flinched slightly when Jo’s fingers brushed over the large purple bruise still angrily shining around his left eye. Alex closed his eyes, letting his wife trail her fingers up to his hairline where he had five stitches carefully positioned on his skin and his right eyebrow that had been cut but was scarring over already.

“Alex what the fuck? Who did this, what happened,” Jo’s hands trailed to cup Alex’s cheeks, the small action causing him to open his eyes and look at her tenderly. “You didn’t answer my calls or texts and then you come home broken and bruised. You’re not in trouble are you?”

“No I, uh,” a sigh left Alex as he recalled everything that had happened while he was back home in Iowa. “Aaron he… he had a mental break. And he visited my mom and she had a mental break… and Amber called me crying because she’s heavily pregnant and couldn’t do anything about it. I’m sorry I didn’t call, I honestly didn’t have a second to think for myself.”

The anger Jo had momentarily felt towards Alex dissipated, her hands coming down to rest on his shoulders as she fixed him with a loving gaze. Until recently, Alex had never shared his family troubles with Jo, or anyone for that matter. Meeting Helen Karev had been a huge milestone for their marriage and something that Jo treasured dearly. But hearing that Alex had tried to keep her away from this new bout of familial issues broke her heart and let her see the scared teenager who was just trying to keep his family together with reckless abandon.

“Don't apologize to me, I understand why you did what you did,” Jo leaned up and tenderly kissed Alex, her fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck. When she pulled back, her hand came to cover the yellowing bruise she had spotted on his collar bone. “How about you just send me a quick text next time so I don’t think you were mauled by a bear or that you ran off with some blonde bimbo.” 

Alex leaned down and captured Jo’s lips again, his fingers sliding underneath her shirt to hold her body how he had craved to do since he left for Iowa. Jo leaned into him readily, her own hands pushing his shirt up with a haste that told Alex she felt the same built up tension he did. 

“Alex…,” the tone of Jo’s voice broke Alex out of his daze, eyes opening once again to find Jo staring at his chest in shock. The scars his brother had left on his face were easy to remember, but the bruises and scratches left by his mother across his chest were harder to put aside. “Oh babe…”

“Leave it,” his voice was hoarse and low, Alex clearly trying to fight back emotion as he lifted Jo’s chin so he could look into her eyes again. “Please Jo, just let me love you. It’s all I thought about on my flight home.”

Jo looked into Alex’s eyes, looking past the hurt and the sorrow and finding exactly what he had described. That look of love, of lust, of _pure need_ shone back brighter than any pain Alex might be hiding underneath it. It doused the fears burning in Jo’s chest, the doubt she had succumbed to the past few weeks without her husband. As much as she had needed Alex to come home to her, he needed her right now. 

Bypassing his bruises and scars, physical and not, Jo pulled Alex into a searing kiss. Her hands began searching his face, coming to run through his hair, trailing down to unbuckle his belt as she inched him closer and closer to their bed. His knees finally hit the mattress, Alex’s back hitting the comforter as Jo rid him of his pants. She took a solitary moment to stare into his eyes, her words hitting with a force Alex hadn’t felt in years. 

“I love you,” the words, spoken so often between the couple, took on a new meaning as Jo’s fingers trailed across Alex’s broken body. “I love you so much.”

Jo pressed her lips against Alex’s again, the two falling into a rhythm that seemed familiar and foreign all at once. Rough hands slid Jo’s shirt away from her body, her moans sounding in tandem with Alex’s as they collapsed in a tangle of limbs and breathy noises. 

_Making up for lost time,_ Jo thought to herself as Alex’s lips ghosted down her body. _Not lost love, just lost time._


End file.
